Assessing the Human Factor in Truck Driving

Human factors assessment techniques are commonly applied to a variety of workplaces to examine the nature of operations and how key functions are controlled operationally; however, these tools appear to overlook key aspects of truck driving, particularly the driver’s relationship to the driving experience. The fundamental issue is with the ability to completely decompose truck driving and accurately document the truck drivers working environment will be problematic. Therefore, to demonstrate how a truck driver moves between each series of sub-tasks will require a purpose-built assessment tool that that is both practical and relevant to truck driving

Development of a Maritime Safety - Tool for Inner Harbour Ferry Transport Operations

This research was interested in examining if an existing rail industry accident investigation tool could be modified for inner harbour ferry operations. The Contributing Factors Framework (CFF) investigation tool was therefore modified for the maritime industry, specifically as both an investigation tool and a post safety occurrence coding tool. The outcome of this research was the development of a new practical human factors centred investigation tool. It provides a framework for the identification of complex sociotechnical system failures and contributing factors specific to inner harbour ferry operations. The new Contributing Factors Framework-Maritime Safety (CFF-MS) tool fills an existing gap in the need to be able to identify specific inter-relationships between people, technology, and the wider transport system when conducting maritime industry safety investigations

Keeping my mind on the job: Mindfulness and workplace safety mindfulness and workplace safety

Introduction: The link between Mindfulness and workplace safety was established some time ago within high reliability organisations. These organisations have long recognised that safety enhancement will come from understanding the person within their work environment. To date however the level of one's individual mindfulness and its relationship with safe work behaviours does not appear to have been widely researched. This research therefore continued the examination of the relationship between an individual’s safety related behaviours, mindfulness, the physical work environment and an individual’s cognitive failures. Method: Various industry workers (N = 92) were recruited and completed a package of self report measures including The Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS), The Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ), The Physical Work Environment Satisfaction Questionnaire (PWESQ) and a measurement of Safe Work Behaviour which followed on from earlier research on safe work behaviours and the link to workplace accidents. Results: Results indicated that mindfulness is positively related to an individual's propensity for safe work behaviour. Mindfulness was negatively related to cognitive failures and to satisfaction with the work environment indicating that the more mindfully orientated a person is the lower an individual’s cognitive failure level is inclined to be, as is their dissatisfaction with the physical work environment. Discussion: Organisations that recognise that they have a direct influence over the mindfulness levels of their workers and who therefore endeavour to enhance the mindfulness of their workers will benefit from having workers who are more in tune with not just their own safety behaviour but the safety work behaviours of those around them

Human factors in rail regulation : modelling a theory of non-linear rail accident and incident networks using the Contributing Factors Framework

In early 2009 the Contributing Factors Framework (CFF) was launched nationally to the rail industry in Australia. It was developed specifically for the rail industry and aligns with systemic incident investigation models. It was developed to capture and code information about all factors that may have contributed to a rail safety occurrence. The three main coding headings used in the CFF to capture this information are: Individual/Team Actions, Technical Failures and Local Conditions/Organisational Factors. Whilst the CFF currently captures contributing factors in the three stand alone headings this research is interested in visually modelling the previously unseen and unidentified non-linear network interactions of all the contributing factors across these three headings. It is also interested in looking at the strength of the relationships amongst the factors as a more holistic way of understanding accident taxonomy. The aim is to identify the trends, through modelling, of which factors contribute the most to high risk types of rail safety accidents and incidents. To achieve this aim major rail safety occurrence reports were analysed for the 5 year period 2006 to 2010 using the CFF tool. The contributing factors for four high risk types of rail incidents: being Collisions, Derailments, Safe Working Breaches and Signals Passes at Dangers (SPADs) will be modelled. Work has now begun on using network analysis software to investigate how the contributing factors are interlinked, how contributing factors are networking and the contribution that the factors have on accident phenomenology. It is envisaged that the outcome of this project will be the development of a new form of visual accident modelling and that this modelling will identify which contributing factors need to be controlled or mitigated for each type of rail safety incident to enhance accident prevention

Eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy: Understanding its use for the prevention of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

Klockner, KD ORCiD: 0000-0003-1981-7515Organisations, particularly within the emergency services area, have long recognised the need to provide support to those workers who face extremely challenging or traumatic events during their ordinary working day. The resilience of these front-line workers is often challenged on a daily basis and at some stage exposure to these events appears to have an accumulation effect, which can lead to the onset of PTSD. The aim of this paper is to espouse that the provision of Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy to workers after both challenging and/or traumatic events provides an effective early intervention in reducing the risk of the onset of PTSD. EMDR has long been used for the treatment of PTSD and is widely recognised as one of the leading treatment therapies once PTSD is recognised and diagnosed. Its value as a preventative tool however for at-risk front-line workers, those exposed to traumatic events and who are at risk of developing PTSD as part of their ongoing employment experience, has up until now perhaps been overlooked. The value of offering sessions of EMDR therapy before the onset of PTSD may be critical in the ultimate prevention of PTSD and other closely related psychosocial issues. EMDR therapy can be used as an early intervention/preventative approach and workers who receive EMDR can benefit from both increasing their resilience for future events and avoiding the onset of chronic PTSD as a result of their employment. EMDR has been recognised as a best practice treatment for PTSD and is endorsed by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Many organisations, however, have not yet recognised the value of allowing at-risk workers to access EMDR therapy as an early intervention strategy for the prevention of PTSD and other psycho-social issues which can arise from emergency service and first responder professions

THE INFLUENCE OF SATISFACTION WITH THE PHYSICAL WORK ENVIRONMENT ON SAFE WORK BEHAVIOUR AND COGNITIVE FAILURE

This research looked at workers' satisfaction with the work environment, cognitive failures and safe work behaviour. Results indicated that safe work behaviour was positively related to workers’ satisfaction with their physical work environment and negatively related to cognitive failures. There was also a negative relationship between satisfaction with the physical work environment and cognitive failures. This paper contributes to a further understanding of how organisations can enhance safe work behaviour with a view to reducing occupational injuries and safety-related incidents by understanding the influence that satisfaction with the physical work environment has on workers

Developing organisational resilience: Organisational mindfulness and mindful organising

This paper discusses the latest model and theoretical understanding around the concept of organisational resilience as it relates to organisational readiness to handle and manage complex socio-technical system fluctuations. The five key principles of organisational mindfulness are discussed along with what is seen as a nexus between the five principles and modern era complex system leadership theory. Suggestions are offered on how to enhance the collective mindfulness principles through strategic leadership efforts across the workforce, with a view to enabling organisations to become more resilient

Human factors in rail regulation: Modelling a theory of non-linear rail accident and incident networks using the contributing factors framework

In early 2009, the Contributing Factors Framework (CFF), a manual providing a data set for the coding of systemic factors contributing to rail safety occurrences, was introduced nationally to the rail industry in Australia. It was developed specifically for the rail industry, endorsed by the Rail Safety Regulators’ Panel, and developed by a working group made up of representatives from Australian Rail Safety Regulators, industry and investigation bodies. The CFF aligns with current systemic safety occurrence investigation models (Bird & Germain, 1985; Reason, 1990b) and was developed to capture and code information about all factors that may have contributed to a rail safety occurrence. The three main coding headings used in the CFF to capture this information are: Individual/Team Actions; Technical Failures; and Local Conditions & Organisational Factors. Whilst the CFF captured contributing factors under these three stand-alone headings, this research is interested in modelling the previously unseen non-linear network interactions and relationships of all the contributing factors across these three major headings. It is also interested in looking at the strength of the relationships amongst the contributing factors as a more complex systems oriented way of understanding accident taxonomy. The aim of the research program is to develop a method that identifies the trends, patterns and relationships, through accident modelling, of the unique interaction of Copyright © Karen Klockner 2015 iv factors that contribute the most to different types of rail safety occurrences. To obtain the data necessary for this accident modelling to occur, major rail safety occurrence reports have been analysed for the 5 year period 2006 to 2010 using the CFF tool. The contributing factors for sub-types of major rail safety occurrences were modelled, including: 1) Collisions, 2) Derailments, 3) Safe Working Breaches, and 4) Signals Passed at Danger. This research began by reviewing the contributing factors data from a traditional linear analysis, and then progressed to the use of the newly developed Safety And Failure Event Network (SAFE-Net) methodology to investigate how the contributing factors are interlinked, and to further show the contribution that the factors have on accident phenomenology. The visualisation of the network metrics reveals important properties about the individual contributing factors in the network. This can allow a risk management focus to be directed to mitigating the main contributing factors with a view to controlling and breaking the identified relationships that seem to be present in typical, and all too often reoccurring, railway safety occurrence scenarios. The outcome of this project has been the development of a new methodology for accident modelling called SAFE-Net. The SAFE-Net method has been shown to generate an accident model for each of the various railway safety occurrences under investigation. This is in keeping with the recent call for modern day accident models to be representative of actual accident phenomenology, and to better represent the complex socio-technical systems in which they occur. The SAFE-Net methodology is able to show where maximum benefit can be obtained by directing preventative measures towards those combinations of contributing factors which are having the most influence, in an attempt to prevent the reoccurrence of that type of event. For the first time, contributing factors can be understood as a network of interacting factors and safety improvements can be made by focusing on the critical co-occurrence of various factors discovered across multiple occurrences. The method provides an original means of understanding the complexity of human factors and technical systems that are instrumental in causing safety occurrences

The influence of satisfaction with the physical work Environment on safe work behaviour and cognitive failure

This research looked at workers' satisfaction with the work environment, cognitive failures and safe work behaviour. Results indicated that safe work behaviour was positively related to workers’ satisfaction with their physical work environment and negatively related to cognitive failures. There was also a negative relationship between satisfaction with the physical work environment and cognitive failures. This paper contributes to a further understanding of how organisations can enhance safe work behaviour with a view to reducing occupational injuries and safety-related incidents by understanding the influence that satisfaction with the physical work environment has on workers